A Jurassic WIP and some brand new handspun

Hard to say which pleases me more at the moment.

I finished off and plied the yarn I was spinning from some Fleece Artist merino sliver that I got from Knit Knack in Maplewood, NJ. Many less bumpies than before, and I got over 300 yards of a worsted weight yarn so there is actually enough to make something with. I like to spin, but I find I don’t like to spin up 75-80 yards of something just for the heck of it – I want to make something with the yarn I spin. So this pleases me greatly. Now what to make of it?

This pleases me in a different way entirely.

Every year the Kid and I wake up at the butt-crack of dawn and schlep to the local mall when it opens at 7:00 am to hunt for bargains and blast through the Christmas shopping list. This year it looked like we weren’t going to go – she got invited to a sleepover the night before our scheduled run, and although I was a tad bit disappointed that we wouldn’t have our tradition, I can certainly understand that she likes to spend more time with her friends now that she is in middle school. So I got over myself, plied the yarn, and had a couple of beers with a neighbor/friend.

Imagine my surprise when the phone rings at 3:30 am – it is the Kid. After I ascertain that nothing is horribly wrong (and my adrenaline level begins to return to normal), I hear her say that she has been thinking about it, and she really doesn’t want to ditch our shopping trip – could I pick her up around 6 am? I wanted to shoot her for waking me up, but of course I went to get her in the freezing cold at 6 am – tradition is tradition.

What does this have to do with the WIP? Well we were not as successful at whipping through the whole list as in years past. Maybe we are getting pickier, maybe the stores didn’t have exactly what we wanted, but we came home with several names on the list still not crossed out. So I went stash diving to see what could be made up in a hurry. And yes, I know what day it is – I was thinking hats or washcloths. Anyway I found this afghan in progress that I started in 1992. Yes, 1992 – fifteen years ago. It has lived at three different houses, is older than my Kid and my dog, and has been taking up space all that time. The pattern is for a sampler stitch afghan – I found 10.75 completed squares, two skeins of yarn and the pattern booklet. So I decided it is now a throw and almost finished! I finished off the last two squares so I can have three squares by four – they are about 15″ square once they are blocked – and started blocking. Two more to block and a quick crochet together, and I will have a pretty wool throw for my always freezing mother – hurrah! As well as more closet space, and the psychic space that is given when you get rid of stuff that has been hanging around for the better part of your adult life. I will post pix when it is completely finished. Right now the whole thing just makes me smile.

Still two pairs of fingerless gloves to go on the list but I am not worried – the throw should be finished today which gives me a week for the mitts.